


I Never Said I Was Perfect

by ziennajames



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Lots and lots of teenage angst, Which is all justified but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 19:38:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziennajames/pseuds/ziennajames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I never said I was perfect. They all just assumed I was. I'm just a boy!" Harry and Draco's point of view after book 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Harry

I never said I was perfect. They all just assumed I was.

And I did nothing to contradict that believe.

They all believed, heck, they still do, that I'm their Golden Boy. Perfect boy. Without blemishes, without mistakes, loved by light and hated by dark. And I loved and hated back. After all, what was hate when it came from the dark side?

It was all.

I had friends. I have friends. They don't know me. But they try. Oh yes, they try; they try so hard, ask me what's wrong when I'm not all smiley-happy.

So I pretend.

I'm a great actor. I'm a great actor and I have to be. I have to keep that smile on my face, no matter what. Always smile, like a picture, like a photograph.

_Heroes don't cry._

Masks. I've had them for a long time. They're so easy to hide behind. I have one that smiles like a clown, one that frowns and wears pens in his front pocket, one that's in control, one that's unreachable. I revel in those masks. And the more I use them, the more I grow used to them, the better I get, the better they fit, the more they start to think -

_\- that that's the real me._

I never once said -

I just want to be  _normal_. A normal teenage boy, without worries other than a bad hair-day or fatty skin. No other worries than hormones playing their annoying parts and nerves about the girls. No other future to think about but where I would go out clubbing the next weekend and what I would wear.

My bad hair-day is permanent. (Though cute, as I've been told.)

I haven't spotted one pimple to today. (Really, nothing!)

Girls only confuse me. (Cupid is playing stupid games. My hormones are wack.)

I'm too young to get smashed. Or to get into a club. Not that it would matter, my age, just show the scar and everything's peachy. I bet they'll make flyers saying I'm a regular, just for good publicity.

Sometimes I wish life was simple again. Dark. Safe. Cupboard.  _Protected._

Sometimes I wish I never would've known. That they'd never come to collect me. That I would've been the unhappy muggle boy in Dudley's spare bedroom, grown too tall for the cupboard after a while. I'd be pushed around by Fat and Skinny, instead of a bunch of Slytherins. That I would've never done magick.

Idle hope, isn't it?

Because here I am, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with no escape possible. It's not nearly as dark as I'd like it to be. It's not as safe anymore as I'd want it to be. Very protected, though, to the point of ridicule.

_How can I protect them, if I can't even protect myself?_

Voldemort.

Protect them from Voldemort. From evil. Dark. Dead Eaters. Pain. Terror. Fear.

_Why don't they understand that I'm just as scared as they are?_

I don't want to die. I never much cared about life, but I don't want to die! Heck, I don't want  _anyone_  to die! Doesn't everybody try to survive? Don't we all? Isn't that instinct? And still -

Some people are idiots. They die for others, to protect others. Bloody  _fool_! I can protect myself! Why did you have to die? It was all my fault, my  _own_.  _Stupid_. _Mistake_.

Sirius.

_...I'm so sorry._

But  _heroes don't cry_. They go on. Always go on onto the next battle. Battles on life and death.

_Sometimes I wish I was never born at all, so I wouldn't have to die._

Green. Ironic, isn't it? My mum with her green eyes,  _my eyes_ , killed by the green beam of an Avada Kedavra. And I survived. Why? It should've been the other way around. I ruined so much, so many lives… So many precious, promising lives all to save mine? So I could live on?

Wouldn't it have been fitting if I were a mistake? The product of a forgotten spell or potion, failed birth control. My entire life is built on mistakes, made of mistakes. One big mistake.

I am a mistake.

I have got no life. I have got no future. My future is green, as is the past. My future will end in the final battle. At this rate the battle will be just before final exams. Oh, Hermione's going to have a fit about  _that_ , we can hardly study during battle, can we.

I love her, honestly, I do! She, Ron, Ginny, Sirius. Remus and Dumbledore. Well, I guess just Remus, 'Mione and the Weasleys then. They're my family. I've never had a real family before... Now I'm practically adopted, and Hermione's surely going to be my 'sister-in-law'.

_If I even survive the war._

I have to. I have to win. They all sacrificed themselves for me! I can't just leave that unnoticed!

Fight. For everyone. For my friends who don't know me; for my schoolmates who don't know what to do with me; for the people outside the castle, muggle and wizard alike, no matter if they even see or like me...

Just give me a chance to grow. Please let me be myself. Please let me do this on my own. Please let me be me. Please let me live my life.

Can I be normal if I win? Or would you think me even more perfect? More powerful? More famous? More special?

_I'm just a boy._

I never said I was perfect. I really never said I was.

Then why do you all keep believing?


	2. Draco

I never said I was perfect. They all just assumed I was.

_Fucking Slytherins._

Of course, I always looked impeccable and nothing short of  _perfect_. I never got the looks wrong. I had the most expensive robes of all, never had a single strand of hair out of place. I had the right 'friends' in the right places, the influence -

Have.

Had.

What's the difference anyway.

They all looked up to me, even the older ones. I am the son of the right-hand man of the Dark Lord, after all. It sounded like a long and impressive title. Later, I got my own: _Slytherin's Ice Prince._

Was it the hair? The eyes? The air? The arrogance? The act?

How I thought I had it going back then. Life seemed so  _perfect_  at the time. I had the power, the fame, the money; I was adored, no, feared amongst the students. Hated, feared and adored; by one, by all; sometimes even all three at the same time. Such a  _perfect_  combination. Such a lethal mix of ingredients.

I was so sure of myself that I thought I'd concocted and bottled victory, all by myself.

How very wrong I was. So naïve, so - Too ambitious for my own good. A deadly collaboration of youth, recklessness, naivety and all-out Slytherin qualities. Ambition. Leadership. Intelligence. Power. No compassion. No courage. Just knowing exactly when to start running to save your own hide.

For some time, I honestly believed I had friends. I believed in loyalty to those that did something for me, in equal trading. Later, I realised not even that was considered worthy to a Slytherin, let alone a Malfoy. Later, I realised I'd never had friends, but only cronies, blind followers and minions. Later, everything was clear.

I've never been brilliant in Divination. Never saw the need to.

I wasn't in Slytherin for ambition or leadership, nor for high intelligence, street-smarts or power, not even for my skills at manipulation and lying when needed, playing my act like a good little boy.

No.

I was sorted into Slytherin, because I was a  _coward_.

I  _am_  a coward, for not daring to kill. For not daring to Join.

I wanted to, so bad, I wanted to! It was my dream from when I was so very young to follow the Dark Lord when I was finally old enough, and I would help him purify the wizard race, and I would be his most loyal, like my father.

_I would be a hero for the cause._

But cowardice decided to grow a brilliant sense of timing.

I'm not weak-hearted. It wasn't compassion or any other Hufflepuff-emotion that made me not do it. Lord knows the old fool should have died already, anyway. Babbling idiot, Merlin!

But no matter how much I disliked him…

…I couldn't hate him.

I couldn't kill the bloody lemon-drop-offering warlock with the always-annoying twinkle eyes that was laying there so pathetically before my feet on the ground. I was so scared that Severus had to jump in and do it for me. I've never once been so ashamed of myself, so disappointed in my abilities.

I was a coward. I couldn't kill.

_Why couldn't I hate? Why couldn't I hate enough?_

My whole life, I've been living towards that point. My whole life I was being prepared to join the legions and serve. A whole year I put into planning the bumbling old fool's death and the entry of the Dead Eaters into Hogwarts.

My whole life went down the drain at the moment Snape spoke those two words instead of me.

And I'm scared. I'm so scared of the war now. I screwed up on a direct order from the Dark Lord; I might not even be welcome anymore… Join the light side? Are you  _mad?_  I'm hated, since then I'm only hated, by everyone! Slytherins will say I couldn't kill and am weak, the rest of the world will say I almost killed and shouldn't be trusted. I don't fit in anymore. I never really did.

_Slytherin._

House of actors. House of masquerades. House of deception. House of lies. House of impostors.

House of...

Evil? Didn't everyone say that?

House of fake. House of cold. House of heartlessness. House that I once dared call home.

_House that won't welcome me back anymore._

I'm going to die, I'm going to die and I haven't even properly lived yet. I've never been myself yet! I've never been a normal bloke yet! I never got the chance to.

I don't know which side is going to win. I don't know. Now, I'm relatively safe, in hiding. Maybe I can't ever get out.

_No life._

Never had one.

_No future._

Am I going to die in green and alone? In pain from suffering an uncountable amount of Crucio's first? Am I going to die smiling or on my knees or curled up into a ball, begging and crying for my pathetic life or what's left of it?

I haven't even loved yet.

" _It is better to love and have lost, then never to have loved at all."_

Slytherins don't love. Malfoy's don't love. No heart, cold heart. Stone.

_If I survive the war…_

Too weak. Powerless. Frightened.

_I wish I was never born at all._

I'll never be normal, I'll always be heartless, I'll never live, I'm going to die, I never got a chance to -

Malfoy's don't ramble. Malfoy's are composed. Malfoy's aren't scared. Ignore the rules and disgrace the Malfoy name.

_I'm just a boy!_

I never said I was perfect. They told me I was.

Please tell me -

_Malfoy's don't beg._

\- that I'll live!


End file.
